GOURMET TRAVELLER 157Coming soonPHOTOGRAPHY SHARYN CAIRNS (UNITED PLACES) & THOM DAVIDSON (WESTIN PERTH)
Elsewhere in the Queensland
capital, Fortitude Valley’s makeover
continues withThe Calile,a
seven-storey hotel of 178 rooms,
suites and poolside cabanas, due to
open by year’s end (thecalile.com).
The Emporium Hotel, recently
bought by Ovolo Hotels, is being
renovated with a Woods Bagot
design and new street-side
restaurant and bar, and will open
its doors asOvolo The Valley
towards the end of the year
(ovolohotels.com.au).
Meanwhile, Emporium Mark
II – oicially known asEmporium
Hotel South Bank– will open next
month. Guests in its 143 rooms will
be fed by chef Josue Lopez (formerly
of GOMA) and watered in the hotel’s
23-metre infinity pool and rooftop
bar, with a retractable roof and
cantilevered terrace on the 21st
floor (emporiumhotels.com.au).
The Whitsundays resortHayman
Islandis set to emerge from a
post-cyclone rebuild with a new look
and identity – out with One & Only,
in with Intercontinental. There is nooicial launch date yet but Hayman’s
website is accepting reservations
from March 2019 (hayman.com.au).
And on the Gold Coast,Ruby
Apartmentsis the first of four
planned high-rise towers located
a few blocks from the beachfront
and furnished with one-, two- and
three-bedroom suites targeted
squarely at the family-holiday set.
Pack the bags for a November
check-in (therubycollection.com.au).
In Melbourne, an apartment
hotel on a far smaller scale opens
this month in inner-city South Yarra,
directly opposite the Royal Botanic
Gardens. The dozen one- and
two-bedroom suites atUnited Places
have a high-finish style similar to
Jackalope (Carr Design Group is
responsible for both) and a butler
to attend to guests. On the ground
floor, chef Scott Pickett will operate
in-house restaurant Matilda and
oversee the room-service breakfast
hampers (unitedplaces.com.au).
In the west, the long-awaited
Ritz-Carlton Perthis taking shape
at Elizabeth Quay. It will housemore than 200 suites, a signature
Ritz-Carlton spa and a rooftop bar
over the Swan River when it opens
mid-2019 (thetowersperth.com.au).
There are at least two compelling
reasons to keep an eye on Tasmania.
Baillie Lodges starts construction
next year on a Southern Ocean
Lodge-style retreat, the 20-suite
Remarkable Lodgehigh on the
Tasman Peninsula, within easy
striking distance of the World
Heritage-listed Port Arthur historic
site (baillielodges.com.au). And
on Parliament Square in Hobart,
a cluster of heritage Georgian
and Art Deco buildings is being
reimagined as a 128-room hotel
to be named, simply,The Tasman.
Expect it to set sail mid-2019.
A few key addresses to
note in the 2020 diary: the
32-room urbanJackalopein
Melbourne’s Flinders Lane, two
W Hotels– one on Melbourne’s
Collins Street and another at
Darling Harbour in Sydney – and
anotherRitz-Carlton, at The Star
in Pyrmont, Sydney.●From far left:
Garum at The
Westin Perth; the
Penthouse Suite
at The Darling
Gold Coast; a
room at United
Places in South
Yarra; the pool
at W Brisbane.